British gun. The horse fell dead on the main street of the city, and, on another steed, the rider passed westward with his news. Some of those who heard the intelligence were loyal, and some were disloyal. They all heard that there had been a victory of the American troops over the British, and they all believed the report. Now, was there any political virtue or vice in the belief by the Tory in Worcester that there had been a victory over the British? Was there any political virtue or vice in the belief by the patriot yonder that there had been a victory over the British? Neither the one nor the other. Where, then, did the political virtue or political vice come in? Why, when your Tory at Worcester heard of the victory, he believed the report and was sorry, and was so sorry that he took up arms against his own people. When the patriot heard the report, he believed it and was glad, and was so glad that he took up arms and put himself side by side with the stalwart shoulders of Parker's grandfather. In that attitude of the heart lay the political virtue or political vice. Just so, in the government of the universe, we all hear that God is our Saviour and Lord; and we all believe this, and so do all the devils, and tremble. Is there any virtue or vice in that belief, taken alone? None whatBut some of us believe this and are sorry. We turn aside; and, although we have assent, we have no consent to God, and we take up arms against the fact that he is our Saviour and Lord. of us believe this, and by Divine grace are glad. We have assent and consent both. We come into the mood of total, affectionate, irreversible self-surrender to God, not merely as a Saviour, but also as Lord. When we are in that mood of rejoicing loyalty to God we have saving faith, and never till then. How can salvation be obtained by assent alone that is, by opinion merely? What is salvation? It is permanent deliverance from both the love of sin and the guilt of sin. Accepting God gladly as Saviour, we are delivered from the guilt of sin; and, accepting him gladly as Lord, we are delivered from the love of sin. Only when we accept God as both Saviour and Lord are we loyal. Only when we are affectionately glad to take him as both are we or can we be at peace. When we believe the news that he is Saviour and Lord, and are glad, and so glad as to face the foe, we are in safety.

ever.

Others

THEODORE PARKER ON THE GUILT OF SIN.

BY THE REV. JOSEPH COOK.

KEEP, my friends, the hush of what Hegel calls the highest act of the human spirit, prayer, while we ask whether there is such a thing in man as enmity of the heart against God. Theodore Parker said there is not. When the unclean sweeper of chimneys, a dissipated man, comes into the presence of a pure and queenly woman, he understands his leprosy, perhaps for the first time, simply because it is brought into contrast with that virtue of which Milton said: "So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, Ten thousand liveried angels lackey her, And in clear dream and solemn vision

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear.”

It is only when a hush produced by the sense of the Divine Omnipresence fills the chambers of philosophy that they are fit places in which to discuss the fact of sin. Not always in Paris has that condition been fulfilled; not always at Berlin or London; not always in Boston. Our ears are too gross to hear the innermost truths of conscience until we feel the breath of eternity on our cheeks. But what a man sees only in his best moments as truth is truth in all moments. As now there falls a hushed sense of the Unseen Holy upon this city of scholarship, it is a fit time to raise the question whether sin is a self-evident fact in human experience. Theodore Parker affirmed that it is not.

James Freeman Clarke, when Theodore Parker was in Italy, in 1859, went into the pulpit of the latter, and was so faithful, both to science and to friendship, as to criticise Parker's scheme of thought for not adequately recognizing the significance of the fact of sin. In reply to that criticism, there came to Mr. Clarke from Italy a letter, which he gave to Theodore Parker's biographer, who has given it to the world. It is a painful duty of mine to-day to cite this latest and frankest expression of Theodore Parker's views. In his youth Parker had written: "I think no sin can make an indelible mark on what I call the soul. I think sin makes little mark on the soul; for much of it is to be referred to causes exterior even to the physical man, and much to the man's organization. Ninety-nine hundredths of sin are thus explicable. I am sure that sin, the result of man's circumstances or of his organization,"can make no permanent mark on the soul."*

Weiss's "Life of Parker," vol. i. p. 149.

Were these not the crude opinions of a beginner in philosophy? Did he hold these opinions through life? Substantially. From his death-bed, Theodore Parker wrote from Italy, in 1860, to James Freeman Clarke:

"Many thanks for standing in my pulpit and preaching about me and mine. All the more thanks for the criticisms. Of course, I don't agree with your criticisms. If I had, I should not have given you occasion to make them.

"Now a word about sin. It is a theological word, and is commonly pronounced ngsin-n-n-n. But I think the thing which ministers mean by ngsin-n-n-n has no more existence than phlogiston, which was once adopted to explain combustion. I find sins-i.e., conscious violations of natural right; but no sin-i.e., no conscious and intentional preference of wrong (as such) to right (as such) - no condition of enmity against God.' I seldom use the word sin; it is damaged phraseology, tainted by contact with infamous notions of man and God. I have some sermons of sin and of sins, which I may live long enough to prepare for printing, but also may not.

"Deacon Wryface, of the Hellfire Church, says: 'Oh! I am a great sinner. I am one mass of sin all over. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. In me there dwelleth no good thing. There is no health in me.' 'Well,' you say to him, 'for once, Deacon, I think you pretty near right; but you are not yet quite so bad as you talk. What are the special sins you do commit?'

"Oh! there ain't any. I hain't got a bad habit in the world; no, not one.' "Then what did you mean by saying just now that you were such a sinner?' "Oh! I referred to my natur'. It is all ngsin-n-n-n.'

"That is the short of it. All men are created equal in ngsin-n-n-n.

"I would rather have a good, plump, hearty heathen like Aristotle, or Demosthenes, or Fabius Maximus, than all the saints from Peter, James, and John (dokountes stuloi einai ['who seemed to be pillars'] down to the last one manufactured by the Roman Church. I mean as those creatures are represented in art. For the actual men I have a reasonable respect. They had some force in them, while the statues even of Paul represent him as mean as a yaller dog.' But let ngsin-n-n-n go.”—(Ibid, p. 151).

That is an amazing letter. The tone of it is unworthy of a cultured man, and is astounding in a dying man. Never would such words have been chosen by Channing, never by Emerson, and never by Parker himself, if there had been behind his phrases a calm, scientific conviction that on this majestic theme he was philosophically right. There is in that letter an irritability, I had almost said a vulgarity, of tone, proceeding not from Theodore Parker's better nature, but largely, I think, from his fear that his positions as to sin would not bear the test of scientific criticism, and yet could not be

wholly given up without giving up the very Malakoff and Redan of his Absolute Religion.

Why, if you should adopt as an established truth the proposition that there is not to be found in man any intentional preference of wrong to right, or no enmity against God, and if you should carefully expurgate literature by that rule, how would Shakespeare look? There is no such thing as preference of wrong to right, Theodore Parker says. If there were to be edited an edition of Shakespeare according to this principle, how much would be left of the naturalness of that mirror of humanity? We now have character after character in Shakespeare represented as making evil a delight, and as knowing the right and approving it, and as abhorring the wrong and yet pursuing it. Your Shakespeare edited after the Parker principle-that there never is in man a preference of wrong to right—would be a limp, boneless, flaccid, lavender thing. You would scorn to call such a Shakespeare a fair mirror of human life. You would find such an expurgated edition plentifully misleading in the study of man's nature. In the case supposed, you could not admit that Shakespeare is the prince of philosophers, as well as the prince of poets, and that he becomes both the one and the other simply by holding up his mirror to all that is.

Were you to expurgate the laws of the civil governments of the world according to Parker's rule, where would justice be? Ask the gentlemen who every day stand in courts of justice, and administer in God's name the eternal law of right, and they will tell you that the expurgation of our courts by the principle that there is no intentional preference of wrong to right would reduce legal equity to moral chaos, and that everything in law proceeds upon the supposition that man does choose the wrong when he knows it to be wrong.

Where would philosophy be if it were expurgated by the Parkerian principle? We have in the last twenty-five years studied more deeply than ever before the subjective experiences of the human heart in the moral region. It is coming now to be one of the highest offices of philosophy to explore the deepest inmost of conscience, and to reveal to man the extent of that disturbance which must arise in his nature when he loves what God hates, and hates what God loves. It is now the highest office of philosophy to show man not only that he has conscience, but that conscience has him.

I affirm that, as men who love clear ideas, we do not want either philosophy or law or literature expurgated according to Parker's principle. But do you want theology expurgated by it? Do you want this delicate little shoot you call religious science shut away from the healthy winds of criticism? Is it to be kept behind the walls of

some colossal authority, and not allowed to battle its way to its full size in all the tempests that strike it out of the north, south, east, or west? How is religious science ever to become a stalwart oak, throwing out its boughs in every direction, vigorously and graciously, and in no fear of tempests, unless it contend with all the shocks of criticism that beat on philosophy, and law, and literature? Religious Science must take her chances according to the law of the survival of the fittest. I maintain that, if you will not expurgate literature, law, and your philosophy according to the principle that a man never has enmity against God, you must not expurgate your theology according to that principle. We must not play fast and loose with the scientific tests of truth.

Having already shown that Theodore Parker did not carefully distinguish intuition from instinct, or inspiration from illumination, or inspiration from dictation, or the supernatural from the unnatural, or belief from faith, I must further affirm that—

9. He made no adequate distinction between human infirmity and human iniquity.

What are the chief points established by self-evident truths as to the fact of sin?

1. Good is what ought to be.

2. Evil is what ought not to be.

3. Conscience intuitively perceives the difference between what ought to be and what ought not to be in the soul's choices among motives.

These are standard definitions, and apprehensible, I hope. Remember that I do not say that conscience knows what ought to be in any matter of expediency outside of the soul. Strictly speaking, there is no right or wrong in external action, taken wholly apart from its motives. There is in such action only expediency or inexpediency. There may be physical evil outside the field of motives; but moral evil is to be found only in the acts of choice. Conscience intuitively perceives motives to be either good or bad. Here stands on one side of the will a motive, and on the other is another motive; and, looking on what we mean to do, we decide whether we will do the best we know, or not. Right and wrong in motives are pointed out by conscience, and not in merely external action.

There is in conscience the power of tasting motives, just as in the tongue there is the power of tasting flavours. I know by the tongue whether a given fruit is bitter or sweet. No doubt we bring up the pomegranate to the lips by the hands; no doubt we look at the pomegranate; no doubt we smell the pomegranate; but only by the tongue do we taste it. So, no doubt, the intellect is concerned in